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Noel-Levitz SSI - 2010

Presentation of results for FGCU

Last fall FGCU students took the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory

(SSI). This instrument is highly regarded and widely used. In 2010 it was

used by 1045 different universities and colleges to survey over 745,000

students.

Respondents, totaling 632, were from a broad spectrum of the student

population. Surveys were distributed to 5961 or approximately one half of

the enrolled students. The responses were evenly spread across all

undergraduate class levels, and included significant numbers of graduate

students. Data from the survey provided FGCU with the opportunity to

compare its performance with that of other four-year public universities

across the nation.

An analysis of the responses to the items in the survey provided answers to

the question:

How satisfied are students with the services FGCU provides and the

educational experiences this university offers?


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Satisfaction ratings were done on a 7 point scale where:

4 = neutral 1 = not satisfied at all 7 = very satisfied

Overview

Students were asked to respond to survey items both in terms of how

important they feel the item is, the scale on the left, and how satisfied they

are with their experience at the university on the item, the scale on the right.

In both cases their responses were given on a seven (7) point scale where 1

was the lowest rating and 7 the highest.

The aim of the survey was to provide the University leadership with

important information they could use for

institutional improvement. But the answers

go beyond giving a measure of student

satisfaction in the traditional ‘are they

happy’ sense. These items don’t simply seek to find out how students feel.

They have been professionally crafted and extensively tested so that they

force specific detailed examination of the quality of the experience offered

to our students.


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What was asked…

…and other questions on★ the quality of services and facilities★ attentiveness of faculty★ fairness★ safety

★ the academic experience★ intellectual rigor★ standards★ the quality and

availability of courses

Students were asked to respond to a broad range of items (98 in all) dealing

with such things as: the quality of services and facilities, the attentiveness of

faculty, fairness, intellectual rigor, and the quality and availability of

courses.

The feedback gained is useful in many ways. Studies have now confirmed

that having students with higher satisfaction leads to higher graduation rates,

higher alumni giving and lower loan default rates. But this satisfaction data

also provides direction for retention initiatives, for our efforts at continuous

improvement, and for marketing and recruitment.


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Items 90 to 98, for example, ask students to rate the importance of certain

factors affecting their decision to enroll. The results are set out in the table

below.

With minor variations in level the top four factors for FGCU – Cost,

Financial Aid, Academic Reputation, and Geographic Setting - remained the

same from 2006 to 2010.

FGCU’s other results for 2010 also show a consistency with the 2006

results. The university continues to be viewed more favorably than the

average for four-year public institutions, and that difference has remained

statistically significant.


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In a plot of the results using axes calibrated from 1 to 7 as shown in the

following slide, Institutional Strengths, important things with which students

were very satisfied, fall in the quadrant at the top right, while the Challenges

– items on which there was low satisfaction - fall in the quadrant at the top

left. For FGCU the scores for all items fell in the ‘Strengths’ quadrant.

very dissatisfied

(1)

very satisfied

(7)

very important(7)

very unimportant(1)

The amount of student parking space on campus is adequate. This satisfaction score for this item moves from 3.04 in 2006 to 4.06 in 2010.

Institutional Challenges

Institutional Strengths

low importancehigh satisfaction

low importancelow satisfaction

Challenges Strengthsvs


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In 2006 in that simple plot of FGCU’s results only Item #21, regarding

adequacy of ‘the amount of student parking space on campus’, fell in the

Challenges quadrant, with a satisfaction score of 3.04. In 2010 the

satisfaction score for this item improved to 4.06 and thus moved over to the

other side of the chart.

Strengths vs. Challenges

Although there are no items in that top left quadrant of our plot, the ‘official’

results include many ‘Challenges.’


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The list has items included because they have what is called a high

Performance Gap score. This gap score is the difference between an item’s

Importance score and its Satisfaction score.

This list of additional challenges is valuable because the purpose of this

assessment is not simply to see or to say how well FGCU did, but to view

the results from a ‘continuous improvement’ perspective. FGCU’s

performance on many of these items (that are listed as challenges) is strong

when comparing its score to the average for other items (and for other

schools) but, given their importance, the goal should be to make the

performance even stronger.

The bottom line therefore is indeed that FGCU did very well on this measure

of student satisfaction, but no matter how well a university performs, the

results will still include a list of challenges.


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FGCU’s strengths included faculty, facilities and campus safety. Students

felt welcome and seemed to enjoy FGCU. Items listed as challenges, were

related to things such as variety of course offerings, or ability to register for

chosen courses. Level of instruction, particularly in distance learning

classes, had high gap scores. Other challenges, related to Financial Aid and

Advising are explored in more detail below.

Student expectation and demands always exceed satisfaction in service

areas, and in this case although satisfaction is good, significantly better than

the average for other schools, the results give FGCU something to strive for.


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Advising and Financial Aid

High Gap Scores for all 3 items related to Financial Aid indicate that this is

an area for possible improvement. However, as the table of comparisons

with scores for National four-year Public Universities shows, FGCU’s

satisfaction scores are consistently better than their average, and for two of

the three items very significantly so.


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Another way to show FGCU’s comparably superior performance, even in

areas of challenge, is to look at its Scale Scores.

Scale Scores

FGCU’s scores are significantly better than the mean for other four-year

public universities even without adjustments to compensate for the fact that

the university is relatively new.


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This is so whether the comparison is made item by item - as in the slide

above, on overall summary scores – discussed in the final section, or on

specially constructed scales of performance.

Noel-Levitz analyzed (the items) statistically and conceptually to produce

scale scores. These scales have meaning when we consider the normal

functions and attributes of a university. There are scale scores that measure

– Instructional Effectiveness, Academic Advising, Safety and Security,

Campus Life, Registration Effectiveness and so on.


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The slide above compares the FGCU Scale scores with the national average

for four-year public universities. From such a viewpoint FGCU’s

performance was superior in all cases and very significantly so in all but two

cases.

In Noel-Levitz’s words…

“The scales provide the big picture overview of what matters to …students.

It also provides the broadest view to identify how satisfied students are when

comparing to the comparison group.”


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Areas of note.

The following two charts provide an alternative representation of the

contrasts on all scale scores, with a particular emphasis on scales covering

areas mentioned previously.


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Of particular interest are the plots for Academic Advising, and Registration

Effectiveness in both charts, and for Safety and Security in the second chart.

In 2010, for Safety and Security, there was a big gain in the score over 2006,

but 2010 satisfaction scores are less in the first two areas, and one of the

items considered under Registration Effectiveness had the highest Gap

Score (2.23). That item, #34 – I am able to register for classes I need with

few conflicts, also had the greatest ‘gap’ (1.79) between Importance and

Satisfaction in 2006. For all Scale Scores however, FGCU still retains its

lead over the average for National four-year Public Universities.


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Summary

…The summary slide below provides a final overview of comparative

performance. It presents the results for the three general questions that were

asked of students at the end of the survey, and compares them with the

average results obtained in four-year public universities.

These Noel-Levitz [SSI] Overall Summary Items were:


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---So far, how much has our college experience met your expectations?

1= Much worse than expected 7 = Much better than expected

FGCU Mean: 4.71 National Mean: 4.54

---Rate your overall satisfaction with your experience here thus far.

1 = Not satisfied at all 7= Very satisfied


---All in all, if you had to do it over, would you enroll here again?

1 – Definitely not 7 = Definitely yes


The difference between the scores for FGCU and the comparison group is a

reported in a third column, ‘Mean Difference’. Listed there are the amounts

by which FGCU scores exceed the average for the other universities. In

every case the differences are significant to at least the .01 level of

significance.


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